Ahnold rescues judge from evil voters, says “She’ll Be Back”

I should have caught this before I posted yesterday’s piece about how an experienced, well respected judge was voted out of office in lieu of a non-practicing lawyer rated not qualified for the gig by the state BAR…

Less than 72 hours after the Los Angeles County electorate replaced Judge Dzintra Janavs with a bagel store owner with limited legal experience, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Friday that he would reappoint the veteran jurist to a vacant seat on the bench ‘as soon as she completes the paperwork.’ (source: LA Times via Topix)

While its assuring to know that we aren’t losing a good judge to preside over our courts, Arnold deserves a little ribbing for some of his reasoning:

I can relate to the problem of having a name that is hard to pronounce.

This is the same Arnold Schwarzenegger whose name didn’t keep him from winning the Mr. Olympia title before he turned 23 (and a total of seven times by 1980), was cast as Conan the Barbarian in one of his first movie roles, bedded, got engaged to, and dumped Amazonian goddess Brigitte Nielsen in 1985, married into the Kennedy family in 1986, and along the way earned $250 million (that’s a quarter billion) starring in a few other movies before becoming Governor of California in 2003.

on the judge issue: not to harp on my why-are-we-“electing”-these-people point from yesterday, but, if you want to get down to it – why is Mr. The People Have Spoken appointing someone the people clearly said “no” to?

I’m not arguing the merits of either candidate at all here. I’m just pointing out that Mr. Schwarzenegger seems to have little problem listening to the speaking public on some issues and ignoring them on others. Sure, he’s not appointing the judge to the seat she lost – but if you think hard about it, it gets a bit goofy.

(p.s. no, I’m not saying we should retain unqualified jurists, nor am I saying appointing a qualified one to the bench is bad in anyway)

Sorry, but that is EXACTLY what you are saying.
I would estimate that probably 75% of people have no idea who they are voting for when they chose judges or school officials. They just pick a name they like. Chosing someone who hasn’t practiced law in 20 years is just asinine.